3 Social-Network Strategies for eBay

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InvestorPlace
eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY ) on a roll since hiring John Donahue as CEO in 2008, with the stock up 30% in the past year, and there's reason to think the good times will continue. Donahue laid out a strategy earlier this year that has eBay focusing on four sales arenas: local, mobile, digital, and social. The company has made big strides in its local and mobile initiatives — it acquired local deals start-up Milo back in December and as well as Where.com in April. Now it’s moving to its social projects. eBay just  hired former Yahoo (NASDAQ: YHOO ) and Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT ) community honcho Don Bradford as its VP of social commerce. Like every other business on the web, eBay has been toying with social networking features for four years, testing out a number of projects like the “eBay neighborhoods” service that gathers members into communities around certain products as well as tools for its shoppers and merchants that let users “like” auctions on Facebook. But eBay has never found a sure-fire way to marry its addictive auction business with the obsessive behavior inspired by Facebook and Twitter. Here are three strategies Bradford and his team can explore to make sure social initiatives help keep eBay growing. Acquisition While more spending might make shareholders nervous, one or two more buys to secure companies with solid footholds in social media makes sense. One potential buy: UberMedia. The developer behind hugely popular Twitter apps for smartphones by Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL ), Google (NASDAQ: GOOG ), and Research In Motion (NASDAQ: RIMM ) is a hot commodity right now, valued at around $40 million , cheap compared to the $135 million purchase of Where.com. UberMedia’s business is solid on its own, but eBay could leverage its technology to bring its auctions to Twitter in any number of ways to get consumers excited. Avoid starting a new social network In the past 18 months, some of the biggest technology and web businesses in the U.S. have tried to launch their own social networks and most have failed miserably. Google is still taking drubbings for Google Buzz and Apple’s only real misstep in recent memory is the weak Ping social network tied into iTunes. eBay shouldn’t pour any resources into creating new networking tools. The very nature of its business as a community of merchants and customers negates the need to build something else with “like” buttons. Strengthen the partnership with Facebook eBay already has a relationship with Facebook –sellers can share their items via their Facebook page by allowing the network to link with their eBay account. However, given Facebook’s moves to grow itself as a shopping destination in the past year, an opportunity exists for both companies to allow eBay auctions to be hosted and accessed directly through Facebook. Nothing would get consumers frothing quite like seeing auction updates in their Facebook news feed. That sort of initiative could make eBay’s social commerce division a valuable asset this year. As of this writing, Anthony John Agnello did not own a position in any of the stocks named here. Follow him on Twitter at  @ajohnagnello  and  become a fan of  InvestorPlace on Facebook.